about on sacks on a high covered platform, and conversed with some of the lean, long-limbed Australian workmen about the Australian labour question.
Immediately in front three ibises were feeding on a sort of salt marsh. The range of hills behind was half hidden in cloud. There was an all-pervading smell of raw sugar from bales awaiting shipment, and though it was not yet very warm the atmosphere was heavy with moisture like that of a hothouse. There did not seem to be very much of Cairns—one or two hotels and boarding-houses, a few wide grassy streets. The scattered houses on high piles had a more than usually unfinished air, with washing hanging out, kerosene tins lying about, and bare-*legged children playing among them. There were a great many goats; two of them had discovered a bag of maize on the wharf and were having a happy time. At last our train arrived, consisting of one or two carriages, so arranged that the backs of the seats could be reversed, and as they all turned sideways you faced the whole length of the carriage, like a Pullman car, and we got the whole of the view during the journey, for most of the time the train has one side against the hill.
The line from the wharf runs among the houses
